


Five times Empress Elisabeth hated Death, and one time she didn’t

by Carmarthen



Category: Elisabeth (Színház), Elisabeth - Levay/Kunze
Genre: 5+1 Things, Child Death, Death, F/M, Freedom, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-01
Updated: 2014-11-01
Packaged: 2018-02-23 13:36:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2549420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carmarthen/pseuds/Carmarthen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>In his face there is no human pity, no understanding of her pain.</i>
</p><p>  <i>If there had been, perhaps she would have hated him less.</i></p><p>Elisabeth has sympathy for Death, once, but it's a long journey to get there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five times Empress Elisabeth hated Death, and one time she didn’t

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zungenleid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zungenleid/gifts).



> Some of this is owed to a conversation I had with drcalvin about Death being in some ways a fairytale creature. I had the Hungarian production generally in mind since it's the one I know best, but I'm not sure this is really version-specific.

### I.

Her head hurts when she awakes, but she has never felt so alive, so fully aware of every part of her body. She remembers a dark stranger, whose voice took away her will, whose gesture made her move without volition. And she remembers that when the invisible bonds melted away, for one terrible moment she wanted to go to him when he beckoned, and she hates him for it.

Her freedom must—will—be absolute.

### II.

She remembers her wedding dance—her true wedding dance—only in her nightmares. During the day all she remembers is being tired: how heavy her gown had been, how her feet had hurt, how tedious it was to remember the right things to say to the right people. She had danced with Franz, hadn’t she? She must have. He was her husband, after all.

But in restless dreams, when the candles burn low and gutter out, she remembers a ballroom full of living statues; dark serpentine shapes in the shadows; a partner who pulled her to him with the violence of someone unused to dancing with the willing.

It does not matter how many candles she lights or how little she sleeps: she cannot escape the shadow cast that evening.

### III.

In her arms, Sophie feels already insubstantial, more frail than her younger sister. She’s been dozing fitfully for the last hour, her tiny chest scarcely moving with her breaths, but she does not dare look away for even a moment.

The air always changes in the room when he’s there; it’s nothing so simple as temperature or stillness, but rather a change in quality, as if everything is electrified. The hairs rise on the back of her neck, and Sophie whimpers in protest at the sudden desperation of her embrace.

"No," she whispers, "you can’t have her."

But he can; he does; as in the end he has everyone. In his face there is no human pity, no understanding of her pain.

If there had been, perhaps she would have hated him less.

### IV.

He always makes himself visible when life seems most unbearable, although she knows there is not a single moment when he is not there, just outside of the light, reflected in the part of the mirror she cannot see, looking over her shoulder. Waiting. It is silly, really, that she had not realized it earlier. It is his nature to be drawn to weakness and misery, to those times when the spirit cannot bear its burdens.

When she is sick, when her mother-in-law has at last declared open war and her husband betrayed her, this is when he comes, with a cool, gentle touch to her wrist, her forehead, with terrible words delivered like a seduction.

But she is not ready for him; perhaps she will never be ready for him. She can turn her husband’s betrayal to her own ends, to gain an escape from the stifling court.

And this also, she has learned about him: like a creature from a child’s tale, he has no power in the face of her will.

 _No,_ she tells him, _no,_ and three times, _no._

### V.

Before, he had wanted her and she had hated him for it.

Now, she wants him and hates him for it.

In the end, the difference is irrelevant.

### VI.

He thinks he has won, at last, and she thinks she should hate him. But here, at the last, she is tired, and he has never been able to understand her reluctance. It is not in his nature to understand.

She will let him have this moment of welcome, this brief taste of the humanity he longs for and can never truly experience, and then she will set her foot on the stairs that stretch up, up into the darkness, away from his realm, and she will fly.

At least he does not kiss like poor Franz.


End file.
